Characteristics of Early Care and Education Programs Attended by Children Not Yet in Kindergarten: Data From the National Survey of Early Care and Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Documenting the Diversity of Children’s Pre-Kindergarten Learning Experiences in the United States: A Portrait Drawing From Three Nationally Representative Surveys

Abstract

Discussions about early childhood education and early learning opportunities are frequently limited by a focus on public preschool programs, to the exclusion of the programs and providers serving the majority of children in the U.S. between birth and kindergarten. During the 2011-2012 school year, approximately 58 percent of four year olds and 85 percent of three year olds were not enrolled in a public preschool program (e.g., free, state-sponsored pre-kindergarten programs for four years olds; Barnett, Carolan, Fitzgerald, & Squires, 2012). This paper draws on new data from the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) to explore the diverse, national landscape of formal and informal settings where young children experience their earliest learning in the years prior to entering kindergarten.

The NSECE offers nationally representative data on providers of early care and education (ECE) for the first time since 1990. Designed to document the nation’s current utilization and availability of ECE, the study aims to deepen our understanding of the characteristics of ECE providers and of the extent to which families can access the care they need or want. The data were collected in 2012 through surveys of (a) households with children under age 13, (b) center-based and home-based ECE providers, and (c) classroom-assigned members of the ECE workforce. Low-income areas, a particular emphasis of public policies on education, were over-sampled. All three surveys drew from the same geographic areas to enable analyses of supply-and-demand dynamics.

The NSECE uses a fifty state (and DC) sample of center-based programs (e.g., Head Start, preschools, school-based programs, and day care centers) and home-based providers identified through state administrative lists and a household screener. This paper will focus on comprehensive data collected from almost 8,300 ECE centers and 6,000 home-based providers to characterize the breadth of ECE programs and the workforce. In particular, we examine a variety of indicators that have been empirically associated with observed care quality. These include structural characteristics of the ECE settings (i.e., group size, child:adult ratio, age range of children grouped for instruction, whether curriculum is used, reported activities from a recent week) and organizational characteristics (i.e., accreditation, compensation of providers, enrollment of special populations such as dual language-learners and children with IEPs). In addition, we examine significant characteristics of the ECE workforce, such as education, ECE experience, professional development activities, and attitudes toward caregiving and child development.

These multi-faceted data cannot only help us understand distinctions between the key types of non-parental ECE typically discussed in policy and practice, but they can also illuminate the tremendous variation within each of these categories. To better understand the availability of ECE opportunities, we will also explore variation by community poverty density.

These timely nationally representative data present a unique opportunity to document the vast diversity of educational experiences that children bring with them upon entry into kindergarten. The findings can indicate existing opportunities and challenges to helping children prepare for kindergarten, and set the context for how educators can help all children be successful upon kindergarten entry.

Authors

• Rupa Datta, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Yasuyo Abe, Berkeley Policy Associates

• Martha Zaslow, Society for Research in Child Development

• Roberta Weber, Oregon State University

• Nicole Forry, Child Trends

• Richard Brandon, University of Washington